Initiation of Heroin and Prescription Opioid Pain Relievers by Birth Cohort

We examined initiation patterns among different birth cohorts of people who used prescription opioids and heroin because of historical differences in drug use availability. We examined data from a community-based study of persons who inject drugs (n = 483) in California and a general population survey from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (n = 1264) and found that individuals born after 1980 were more likely than were individuals born before 1980 to initiate opioids through nonmedical use of prescription opioids than heroin.